I read Hal Edward Runkel’s book, Scream Free Parenting, Sunday afternoon. I’ve heard the title bandied about on AP sites and wanted to check it out. I’m always on the look out for new consensual living books. I feel like I’m a better mother when I actively try to grow as a person and parent. My hold came in at the library last week, and so I picked it up on our weekly library run on Friday. Sunday afternoon was a lazy afternoon and a perfect time to catch up on some reading while watching the kids play.

I think the title could be a little off-putting, but I reserved any judgement on the book based on this. In all honestly, it’s a catchy title and therefore sets up a good marketing plan. I started off reading with high hopes, as I am getting ready to start our local NCP/CL book club back up after taking a break from it for a while. I was hoping that I could add this book into our discussions.

The book started out well. While there were a few references that had me stop in my tracks, I quickly realized they were there to appeal to a wider audience and that they weren’t actually part of the content of the book. Runkel makes a lot of good points. He mentions that the only person you can really control is yourself, and that by focusing on yourself and your words and actions, rather than on being reactive to situations, you can improve your communication and reltionship with your child. He stresses that parenting itself is a way in which we can grow as people. Runkel also discusses the difference between having a responsibility to our children rather than being responsible for our children. Children are people and need to be allowed to be their own persons. We have to remove ourselves from viewing them as an extension of ourselves. He has a lot of nice catch phrases in the book which are certain to appeal to many parents along with some genuinely good advice thrown in.

About 1/3 of the way through the book, as I was sending messages with a friend about restarting the book club, I mentioned that this might be a good book for us to discuss. At the end of each chapter, Runkel has even included reflection questions – perfect for a discussion group. And if I could package the first half of the book and market it by itself, I would recommend the book to every parent.

Unfortunately, half-way through the book Runkel changes course. He switches from the great advice and reminders he was giving parents to a much more authoritarian view of parenting, requiring that you set consequences and stick with them. It’s very punitive in nature and doesn’t allow for any discussion or cooperation between parent and child. In fact, I’m sure users of the infamous Love and Logic disciplinarian style would love the book.

So, for the book as a whole, I’d recommend you look around for another way to spend your afternoon. If you are willing to take what you want from the first half and discard the rest, it isn’t bad. Luckily, there are many really good books out there that are much better.

The Five Love Languages of Children, by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell, is not in and of itself a book about consensual living. It does skirt the issue of consensual living, though, and has merit for some parents. The book as a whole would be stronger if the authors had chosen to make the book either secular or religious, instead of their attempt at straddling both worlds. The outside of the book and publisher reviews make no reference to religious content. Single biblical references in each of the first two chapters lead to long Christian sections further in the book. Parents looking for a book without religious references will be sorely disappointed by the inclusion of religious references and opinion. Parents looking for a religious reference would be better served with a book that is straight forward regarding its references and position and which continues that theme throughout the entire book.

The book begins by addressing unconditional love, a term made more popular by Alfie Kohn. This is a concept often misunderstood by mainstream parents, and the authors clarify that while parents may always love their children, it’s the perception of the child that matters. This is an important distinction to make for parents. The concept of a love well, similar to Lawrence Cohen’s love cup, is also addressed at the beginning and utilized throughout the book. It is important that our children feel loved, and the book adequately addresses this fact. However, the beginning of the book, as well as various other parts, seem to meander around without clear focus, perhaps as a result of having two authors writing together; although other authors in a similar partnership, such as Faber and Mazlish, seem to do just fine with this approach.

The center portion of the book addresses what the authors refer to as the five love languages, defined by them as: physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, and acts of service. The love languages seem to be loosely based on neuro-linguistic programming, with an emphasis on communication. I can’t argue with the concept of good communication and conveying to your children that you love them unconditionally. However, the overall concept is better explored with non-violent communication and other books on connection parenting. The authors begin addressing the concept of authority and the training of children towards the end of this section.

The last third of the book focuses greatly on training your children properly with love. The concept of training children stems from the belief held by many conservative religions that children are inherently bad and that without our help, they are incapable of making good decisions. This is not a concept held by families practicing consensual living nor by the world of psychology in general. The authors go on to end the book by addressing how their particular religious beliefs affect their parenting and how it should affect yours.

I would recommend this book to Christian parents who aren’t quite on board with consensual living or non-coercive parenting, but who are looking for more gentle ways to interact with and communicate with their children. Consensually living families will find the concepts of unconditional love and the expression of such more adequately addressed in other books.

In April 2008, Lenore Skenazy wrote an article for The New York Sun entitled Why I Let My 9-Year Old Ride the Subway Alone. There was a lot of feedback from this article. Parents were outraged that she allowed her child alone on a subway. Parents were thrilled to see another parent allowing her child freedom. She was immediately called by television studios for interviews. Later she began her blog Free Range Kids and wrote a book entitled the same, Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry. There was a lot of publicity in the radical unschooling world prior to the book’s release. I have to admit I felt some excitement about it and considered pre-ordering it. The price at the time held me back. My ideals of simplicity gave me enough common sense to know that I should probably check the book out and read it before spending hard-earned cash for my personal library.

It took our public library a while to get the book in. In fact, I just recently was able to request it and read it. I sat down to read the book and was immediately drawn by the fact that it started out very conversationally – promising to be a quick read, something every time pressed parent of many young children appreciates. I found myself thinking that many parents would enjoy that aspect, however, I found that I did not. I would have enjoyed a book which read like a novel, with great insight and some research. Instead, the book is written in the manner that (admittedly, I presume here) Skenazy speaks. I have to say that it really grated on me and I contemplated not finishing the book many times. I have an affinity for complete sentences.

During the 200+ pages of the book, the author attempts to make her point against helicopter parenting by giving example after example of over the top control. One can only read so much of this before thinking that enough is enough. She states several times that parents also need to lighten up on each other and not judge, but she doesn’t give other parents that same respect she asks for, continually joking about other parents and being quite harsh at times. While some may find her style humorous, I don’t enjoy spending my time reading about one parent degrading others, whichever side I happen to agree with. It grows old quickly, and I found myself freqeuntly checking to see how much I had left to read. She stated that we shouldn’t pay attention to so called parenting experts, and then would repeat other parenting experts to support her side.

The crux of the matter is that in order to allow our children more freedom, we need to know our kids and trust them. A healthy dose of common sense goes a long way and will help your entire family to enjoy life more. With those two sentences, I’ve just saved you some valuable time reading the book and preserving your sanity while preventing eye strain from rolling your eyes and dental bills from grinding your teeth.

Before Alfie Kohn, Pam Leo, Naomi Aldort, or many of the other consensually living authors of our time, there was Dr. Haim Ginott. Ginott revolutionized the parenting and psychology worlds with his new philosophy on communicating with children. His book, Between Parent and Child, was on the national best seller list for over a year when it was written in 1965. While the republished version, edited and amended by his wife Dr. Alice Ginott, has been updated, it retains the same basic premise.

First and foremost, children need compassion and understanding from their parents. They need to hear that their feelings, wishes, and dreams are acknowledged by us and that those internal feelings are always acceptable, although the resulting behaviors may not be. Guidance, not criticism, will help them to convey their thoughts and feelings in appropriate manners. As parents – the indviduals whom our children should be able to count on and trust more than anyone else, the words we use hold much more power and we should be cognizant of that when we speak with them. By modeling effective communication and giving our children the opportunities needed in order for them to develop their own responsibility, we will be helping them develop the skills they need.

If you are looking for one book to add to your home library this year, I would strongly recommend putting this one on your list of possibilities.

Most parents want their children to be equipped to handle life when they are grown. The skills needed to do this are ones that we can help them with right now. Rather than handling situations for them, and hence taking responsibility for our children, we can show responsibility to our children by helping them to problem solve and handle conflicts on their own. Myrna Shure has addressed not only the philosophy behind helping children learn how to think rather than what to think in her book Raising a Thinking Child: Help Your Young Child to Resolve Everyday Conflicts and Get Along with Others, but has gone the step further so often requested by parents by going through numerous examples of how exactly to do this.

Shure begins by explaining the principle concepts of Interpersonal Cognitive Problem Solving, generally referred to as I Can Problem Solve (ICPS), which has been successfully used in home and institutional settings for decades. According to the book, ICPS will help you:

see that helping your child think a problem through may in the long run help more than immediate action to stop what she is doing;

provide a model of problem-solving thinking for your children – as a thinking parent, you might inspire your child to think.

ICPS will help your children:

think about what to do when they face a problem with another person;

think about different way sto solve the same problem;

think about the consequences of what they do;

decide whether or not an idea is a good one;

realize that other people have feelings and think about their own feelings too.

The concepts in the book were not new to me. As part of striving for a consensually living family, we try to brainstorm solutions as a family or help our children think through their own problems to come up with their own solutions. When people develop their own solutions, they are much more likely to implement and follow through with them. What makes Shure’s book unique is that she goes through specific key words to use during dialogues and has numerous examples to help parents new to using this type of technique.

Reading through the examples, I was struck with the thought that the process and word choice was almost patronizing to children and adults alike. I couldn’t imagine going through the examples with my children. However, as I continued through the book, I was immediately struck by the example given where the mother stepped in, using ICPS techniques with her children when the father, who had less opportunity to practice these techniques, was frustrated and reaching his limit. That was the moment when I realized the value of the given examples for families, children and parents, who are new to such concepts and are looking for key words to help them in the learning process.

As the title implies, the examples in the book are geared toward families with young children. They would need to be adapted quite a bit for familes with older children (or even some familes with younger children) so that the kids didn’t feel as if they were being spoken down to. However, the main philosophical concepts are relevant to all families and individuals for thinking through conflict and resolution.

Shure shows in her examples that children are empowered by solving their own problems. Yet, she also advocates liberal use of praise in order to get children to practice these new found skills. In my opinion, the book and concepts in general would be strengthened by removing the use of praise.

For families who are living differently from mainstream America, it can often be difficult to find children’s books which reflect our own values. Emery Bernhard has a lovely book entitled A Ride on Mother’s Back: A Day of Baby Carrying Around the World which appeals to attachment parenting families everywhere. The book takes a look at how different families in different cultures around the world go about their days with securely attached babies and children. While the title of the book specifically mentions mothers, the book shows many relatives sharing in the babywearing, including siblings, fathers, and grandparents. The brief glance into other cultures, along with a slightly expanded bit of information at the back of the book, is appealing to older children. Babies and toddlers love reading books about others their age. This book gives a nice opportunity for those families who practice attachment parenting to share with thei rchildren about other babywearing families. My children have all loved the book when they were little and continue to do so as they grow older.

Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel Siegel and Mary Hartzell is an informative and insightful book. Our previous experiences have lasting effects on future experiences. If we don’t take the time to process our own pasts – good and bad, we are destined to repeat history. While I didn’t find any of the information to be new, the biological and psychological processes were very interesting. That being said, I wouldn’t recommend the book for many individuals due to the technical nature of much of the book. If you are looking for a good parenting book addressing healing yourself from your childhood and separating yourself in order to be fully present with your children, I would steer you instead to Naomi Aldort’s Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves.

In her book Positive Discipline, Jane Nelsen approaches the topics of gentle and non-punitive parenting from an Adlerian point of view. She introduces the four R’s of punishment – resentment, revenge, rebellion, and retreat – and focuses her version of positive discipline as one which works toward mutually acceptable goals and solutions. The book has a lot of good information in it, although this is not the book I would recommend to parents new to the concept of consensual living or non-punitive parenting.

Nelsen writes as though she is lecturing, which ironically she advocates against (small pun intended). While she provides review questions at the end of each chapter, supposedly for discussion, they read as text book assignments. In an attempt to cover a multitude of ideas, the book tends to be repetitive and drawn out. This isn’t a book that grabs you with inspiration, compelling you to turn pages. I do find the book useful for quiet contemplation for those who are comfortably practicing consensual living and actively working toward their own growth as parents and individuals.

My 7 year old has a loose tooth. It isn’t terribly loose, so I don’t think it will be coming out for quite some time, but it is loose none-the-less. The first loose tooth is a sign of coming change. My child is growing up. It’s new and exciting and bittersweet.

In the book, Beeler describes traditions concerning loose teeth from all over the world. The short desrciptions, along with illustrations, make the book suitable for children of all ages. It was interesting to learn about different traditions and to see how similar cultures have similar traditions. It seems that throwing the tooth is a recurrent theme throughout Europe and that Spanish speaking cultures have traditions centering around a rat or mouse. Throughout many parts of the world, the various traditions center around having a new tooth that grows in strong and straight.

At dinner one evening, I asked my son what he wanted to do when he looses his first tooth. He is undecided at this time, contemplating how he wants to celebrate. The question did lead to a most interesting, and later hilarious, discussion about possible traditions. It culminated in a family story time where the kids and I decided it would be a lot of fun for my husband to dress up in a tooth fairy costume, complete with glitter “fairy dust.” I’m not certain of my husband’s thoughts on that matter, as by that time we were all laughing to hard to have any further discussion on the topic.

Sometimes parents get so caught up in the physical acts of parenting, that they forget about the emotional acts of parenting. Becky Bailey presents the idea of making rituals in order to reconnect with our children in her book I Love You Rituals. While much of the book is targeted to parents and caregivers with young children, I think many parents could benefit from reading her book.

The first couple of chapters seemed to drag on a bit, but she started getting to the heart of the matter in chapter two. In line with other writers of non-coercive parenting, Bailey discusses the concept of unconditional love. She takes her explanation a step further by clarifyng it as unconditional affection. Just as others have written, most parents always love their children. The disconnect is in the child’s perception – based on our actions. Children need to experience our unconditional love as unconditional affection.

I’ve often heard from people who would be sold on the idea of non-coercive parenting if the idea of praise was part of the concept. Some people exclaim that they themselves love hearing praise, and therefore they refuse to take that away from their children. I believe that Bailey hits a key point. It isn’t praise that people long to hear, it is feedback that they truly want. They aren’t really looking for a “Good Job” when they clean the kitchen, go to work, take care of the kids, or do any of the other things we as parents do on a daily basis. What they really want is feedback. They want to hear that someone noticed what they did and possibly whether or not that person appreciated their effort. The same applies to our children. They don’t need to hear that you think they did a good job at something, they just want acknowledgement that you saw them do it. They want specific feedback without judgement because in listening to feedback, they know you are there for them, and yet they are free to make their own decisions about their actions.

I Love You Rituals are things we can do to reconnect with our children, both in normal times and in times of undo stress. It’s that connection with our children that allows us to work together as a team in order to solve problems. Bailey addresses the idea of authority in a different light, using the root of the word. Parents as authorities do not impose their will on their children. It is impossible to truly control another person. Instead, she suggests that we use our authority to lead the situation away from where it is going and reconnect with our children in times if stress (whatever they may be) by using rituals.

The rest of the book has suggestions for love rituals. There is an extensive section on finger plays which would be quite appropriate for toddlers, although she does address activities for elementary aged kids at the end of the book. Overall, it’s a good book, and I think she has found a unique way of explaining some of the NCP/CL concepts. The examples of love rituals would be helpful for parents and caregivers of young children who need a little help coming up with ideas.